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Paul Jenkins
Treasury Solicitor and Head of the Government Legal Service (GLS)

Like many Treasury Solicitors and Government Legal Service heads before him, Paul Jenkins was drawn to Government legal work by the unique mix of law and politics.

“The GLS has given me an incredibly varied and fascinating range of work,” he says. I don’t think my career would have been half as intellectually challenging had I pursued it anywhere else. I would highly recommend the GLS to any lawyer who is interested in dealing with issues of real national importance.”

A major selling point of the GLS, he contends, is the scope it offers to move into different areas. “The GLS never assumes that, because a lawyer has specialised in a particular field, they won’t have the capacity to take on a new challenge. On the contrary, we actively encourage our lawyers to develop transferable skills which they can apply to widely differing types of Government work.”

Paul’s own career has not stood still since he joined the GLS from the self-employed Bar 27 years ago. His early years were devoted to litigation work at the Treasury Solicitor’s Department (TSol), where he specialised in competition law followed by more general public law. He then took the unusual step of moving into Human Resources for a year – working as TSol’s Head of Personnel while giving legal advice to the British Museum and the National Gallery.

His next port of call was the Treasury Legal Advisory team, followed by a return to competition law for two years at the then Monopolies and Mergers Commission (now the Competition Commission). Then, in 1992, he returned to TSol to become the first Legal Adviser to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) where, among other things, he helped set up the National Lottery and pave the way for digital broadcasting.

Six years later he moved to the Lord Chancellor’s Department (now the Ministry for Justice), where he became the Legal Adviser and then Director General of the Legal and International Group. This, again, gave him the opportunity to combine law with some of the broader challenges offered in the Civil Service.

He set up the LCD’s International Department, building an extensive programme of mutual cooperation and assistance with central and eastern Europe, China, India and the Commonwealth States in the Caribbean. He also conducted a broad range of legal work – from helping introduce the Human Rights Act to reforming the Office of Lord Chancellor. In addition, he became the Department’s first Diversity Director.

Immediately before taking up his present appointment, Paul was the Director General of the Law, Governance and Special Policy Group in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as well as the Solicitor to both DWP and the Department of Health.

He believes that now is an especially exciting and challenging time for GLS lawyers. “There has never been a greater demand for professional, high quality legal services across Government. Delivering those services has always been a hallmark of the GLS – and, I believe, will continue to be one of our defining features.”